Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen left the company in 1983 after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. He has recently made comments about Windows 8 and believes that people will eventually learn to like the OS. However, he recently stated that Windows 8 was "puzzling" and "confusing initially." Allen made comments on a post this week made on his personal blog.

Allen says that he has been running Windows 8 Release Preview, which shipped back in May, on his desktop and on a Samsung 700T. That is the tablet that Microsoft is been handing out to developers, analysts, and some members of the press to get them to try out Windows 8.

"The bimodal user experience can introduce confusion, especially when two versions of the same application -- such as Internet Explorer -- can be opened and run simultaneously," Allen said.

The two user interfaces that Allen is talking about are the Windows 8 style, previously called Metro, offering a minimalist look and the classic view that looks like a slightly modified Windows 7 desktop. Allen also criticized some of the changes to the operating system that have been voiced by other users as well.

"Strangely, there is no way to set the desktop as your default view (there should be)," Allen wrote. "This is one of the single biggest changes in Windows 8: the lack of the familiar Start menu."

"I found myself wishing that a Power tile was available on the Start screen to make these commands more accessible," Allen continued.

Ultimately, Allen says that even with the quirks of the new operating system that Windows 8 would be manageable by users. He also believes that Microsoft will address any issues with its next release. Some of the issues Allen mentions are reasons beleived to be contributing to the slow adoption of early versions of Windows 8.

How is launching an app in Win7 not an interruption? You move your eyes to the corner, click, go to Programs, click, scroll, read a bunch of folder names, click, etc. The fact that you are going to the start menu means you are intentionally interrupting yourself to start a new task anyway. 90% of the programs you launch will interrupt your view anyway.

The primary interruption, from what I can gather, is having to devote the entire screen to open a new application in Win 8, while in Win 7 it's just opening the start menu and poking around a little. I suspect you'll continue to scoff at the idea of Win 8 being more of an interruption than Win 7, but you are clearly not one of those people who has such a workflow routine that even "little" differences like that can be distracting enough to lose focus for a bit, and thus productivity.

Instead of continuing this argument for Win 8 (which you come off as stubborn and unpleasant by the way, and so does most everyone else now that they're knee deep in it), might I recommend simply letting them let their concerns be known and not nitpick over whether you think they're "valid?" If they don't get the option to do what they want they'll adapt or continue to use Win 7, which should have no effect on you. Likewise, if the changes to Win 8 are added as an option then it doesn't affect you because you can still use your preferred way of opening your apps. There is no chance MS would entirely revert back to the start menu at this point, in case that was your concern.